Getting the Most Out of Your Videos

One way to increase the reach of videos used on your own website is to post them on video sharing sites. By doing so, you can immediately boost the viewers who are exposed to your product, services, or important message. Also, you create links back to your website, and those links in turn boost your search engine ratings.

Posting on other sites is an easy way to leverage your video assets to the maximum. In addition to popular places like YouTube and Facebook, you may also want to consider using a “video distribution service like TubeMogul to deploy your videos to the top sharing sites,” suggests Michelle Bowles. (See Tips for Video Optimization.)

Posting on your own site requires special care and consideration as well.

“The impact created by the video not only depends on the quality of the created video, but the final quality of output that reaches the viewing audience...A good video backed up by a poor video player is often a let down and fails to create the impact that it would have...” (See TalkGold.)

Many wonder about whether to use Flash, Quicktime, or some other plug-in, or to employ a code-heavy embedded player to display video. The decision hinges on several factors. Quicktime is known for easy integration with the iPod; Flash is known for ease of use, good quality display, and excellent functionality. Sometimes web visitors don't have the proper plug ins loaded on their computers to see the content, but that is fixed easily enough once they take time to load them. The important challenge is that adding keywords or video summaries is not extensively supported with such plug ins. The way to compensate is to make text on the page key-word rich and SEO optimized. So, for a site with just a few videos, it is probably better to use a Flash player since its quality of play is comparatively better than other players. On the other hand, an embedded player or a custom video database is advisable for websites that will manage a lot of videos, or where videos are intended to be uploaded by visitors.

An embedded player is more accessible to search engine spiders than are plug-in players. The Video Conversion and Management Database offered by HIT Web Design can take any format of video that is uploaded and convert it behind the scenes to a manageable file for display on your site. It also allows you the ability to add keywords, titles, captions, and summaries to the video information, a critical step to making the videos show up in search engines.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

Interesting Content is a Must for Successful Videos

Interesting video content stems from the quality of your message, and the professionalism of your delivery. Find the spark in what you have to say, the thing that makes your business unique, or the element that makes your organization important. Then, develop a script that says it with conviction and sincerity. Clever comparisons, humor, interesting facts, or personal testimonials are all good techniques to keep viewers interested.

Business-to-business expert Glen Bently suggests using a professional to shoot your videos because there are many things to consider that require a professional camera team and director. “Don't do-it-yourself. You get one chance to make a first impression, and a poor online video viewing experience can turn off viewers. You can't imagine the mistakes that are possible just from capturing sound and lighting issues alone...” He agrees the use of a good script is essential, too. Glen continues, “Talking heads can get really boring, really fast. Include a variety of graphic elements to keep the viewer interested. Think 3D, animation, special visual effects, scene changes, interesting backgrounds and above all an interesting script. Shoot some "B" roll footage that you can use between scenes. Keep dense text off the screen.” (See Getting the Most Out of Your Online Videos.)

If you have photogenic employees, use them for “real” shoots; if not, hire an actor. Good actors can convey the right emotion in a convincing way—that's what makes them actors. Finding good actors does not have to be expensive, either. Many young and talented actors would welcome the opportunity to work for free (or a minimal fee) in exchange for footage they can add to their personal video portfolios. An ad on www.craigslist.com (an actor's default agent) calling for actors to audition with head shots will weed out non-professionals and provide you with a wealth of talent to choose from. Remember, as a professional courtesy, you should supply a script for them in advance to prepare for the audition.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

How to Choose an Autoresponder Program

There are several autoresponders to choose from. As you’re deciding what one to use, consider the following: You’ll want an autoresponder that allows you to measure results. Why even use an autoresponder if you aren’t able to find out how many of your emails are being opened, deleted, etc? Many autoresponders provide a great deal of reporting that will help you measure your ROI (return on investment).

You may also want to find an autoresponder that doesn’t send out on the weekend. Many autoresponders don’t have this feature, but it is an important one. Readers are more likely to open your email if they receive it during the work week.

Personalize your autoresponders as much as possible. Gather information about customers so that you know what autoresponders should be sent to them. This means that you’ll want to gather information about your customers by using a customized form.

Use autoresponders to show how much you know about your industry, introduce customers to a new product, or to countdown to a product launch or new store opening.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

Creating Effective Forms

Forms are a great way to get information about your website's visitors. Too many sites have forms that are too long with too many questions, or ask seemingly unimportant questions and as a result do not get filled out. When using forms on your website make sure they are as effective as possible.
When deciding what information your form will gather, make a list of everything you would like to know about your potential customer. Then go through that list and determine which form fields are essential and which ones are not, and only use the essential questions on the form.

The form fields should also help in your business' marketing efforts. Use questions that can help you identify the demographics of your customer base, but again, only get the demographic information you really need. Asking for too much personal information may deter someone from filling out your form.

HIT Web Design can create custom forms for your site to help you gather the information you need to better serve your customers and increase revenue.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

Increasing Your Websites Marketability Through Forms

The purpose of any website is to market your business or services, and one of the most effective ways to do this is to ask your website visitors to do something—a call to action. Presenting great information about a product or service does not accomplish much if you do not ask for action.

Forms can be a great call to action. Simply asking your customers and visitors to fill out a contact form for more information can create sales leads for your business. Forms become a great way to gauge the overall effectiveness of your site. If your message and call to action is desirable and clear, then visitors to your site will want to fill out your form. If people are coming to your site and not filling out the forms, maybe you should consider making changes to your site, such as promoting the call to action in your text or making the form more accessible and easier to find.

The information you gather through a form can help you personalize messages, sales, or services to individuals or for a specific demographic. Knowing who your customers are makes it easier to provide the products and services they want.

HIT Web Design can help you put forms on your website to help increase its overall effectiveness and increase its marketability.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

Continuation On Color And It's Importance To Your Marketing Message

Continuing on the theory of color and how it can affect your viewers and sales, there are three colors that go along with the primary colors. When you mix red and blue you get purple, when you mix yellow and blue you create green, and when you mix yellow and red you have orange. These colors can be significant and important in the message they convey to the users of your site.

Purple in the past, and still to this day, represents royalty and nobility. Many think of it as a creative color, a rich color representing depth of thought or wisdom. It is often a good color for creative sites or websites that encourage education or have something to do with education. It is often used in various shades for winery sites for its obvious association with the wine grape.

Green is an often associated with nature, plants, healing, and spring time. It is a soothing color that is easy on the eyes. It is generally associated with vitality and productiveness. Because it is so easy and pleasing to the eye it is a good color to use in abundance on a site design. It is a great color to use for any website that has to do with nature, natural processes, farming, landscaping and anyone who works with the outdoors.

Orange is one of the warmest and most inviting colors. It carries with it the warmth of yellow and the vitality of red making it a wonderful color to represent energy. It is a good color to use to represent fun, vigor and cheerfulness. Orange is an appropriate color for a site that wants to convey a fun message; it's a great compliment for green in representing vitality and nature. It is often used for restaurants and food vendors. Orange is associated with fall as well.

This is just a general guide to color and I hope it serves to inspire you to learn more on your own about how to use color to attract and hold the attention of visitors to your site. Color is very important in marketing and this is something your graphic designer can help you with. Don’t make the mistake of just going with your favorite colors – your favorite colors may be entirely wrong for the message you are trying to get across or will be most effective in marketing your product. My recommendation to anyone when looking at colors for their site is to go out and look at the most commonly used colors on their competitors sites and websites that are associated with the product and/or services that are related to theirs. This will give you a guide to go on when picking your own color scheme.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

SEO Versus Paid Search Engine Ads

The best way to make sure your site has great ranking in the search engines is so simple it seems like it is too good to be true. Simply write the content in such a way that it is of most benefit to the customer/viewer you are trying to target. That’s it!

With that said, it does take some thorough research. You need to figure out what your customers/viewers will be searching for when they look for a website that has to do with your business, and then write the content accordingly. This should be fairly easy as hopefully if the customer is in fact searching for your type of business simply using the keywords about your business in the content of your site will go a long ways towards creating a site that is friendly to the search engines, and will help you get the positioning you need. Another great way of helping your ranking is to have sites that are ranked highly link to your site. Do not fall into the trap of thinking you can cheat the search engines, even with reciprocal links. Avoid linking to “bad neighborhoods” (sites that are known for spamming the search engines) or scamming links to your site in any way. It can ultimately lead to your being banned altogether. However, legitimate links are always helpful.

Another benefit of great content is an increase in your conversion of site viewers to actual buyers. If your site doesn’t make someone want to buy from you, getting traffic to the site ultimately means nothing. I will touch on this subject more in future blogs.

In talking about search engines as a marketing strategy, I would not be doing anyone a service by saying that relying on search engine traffic for your business is a good thing. Search engines are constantly changing their algorithms and if they suddenly change something that causes your ranking to drop, sales can plummet. This is something that is completely out of your control and can in itself be disastrous. Instead of just SEO, I would recommend a more conventional method by employing SEO as well as paid advertising on the web and search engines, such as Google Ads. The paid advertisements under the keywords of your choice that you bid on can be extremely lucrative and can often be worth their weight in gold.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

Marketing Your Website

You’ve created a site – now you need to market it. If you don’t tell people about your site no one will know it is there. A website is just like a physical location. If you build a store on top of a mountain, no one will know about it. The same goes for the web. If you build a site, no one will know it is there unless you make a splash, bring attention to it, shout it out to the world.

A good way of doing this is all the usual, conventional, practical methods of advertising such as print, radio and television, as well as lesser yet effective methods such as magazines, billboards etc. That costs a lot of money however and some people just don’t have that budget. I would still recommend looking at these methods and trying at least some of them on a limited basis, depending on your budget. However, there is another method; one that is not as effective or as lucrative as other methods, but works none the less.

Search engines.

Now, if you are like most businesses you are going to have a lot of competition out there. All of your competitors want to be found under most if not all of the same search terms you do. This can lead to some pretty fierce fighting for position on the engines, especially Google as it currently holds the title of champion in the search engine arena. According to comScore Media Metrix Google accounts for 74% of all search engine traffic, Yahoo has 14%, MSN 9%, Ask has 2% and all other SE's share the remaining 1%. With the amount of searches going on every day in the world, even 2% with Ask is a large number, but no one can hold a candle to the top dog, Google.

This means you need to optimize your site, for the most part, for Google. That doesn’t mean you ignore the other engines, but with 74% of the traffic, Google is obviously the lion’s share and it only makes sense to do it with them in mind.

How do you optimize a site for the search engines, or more relevantly, Google? Well, there are a lot of ways to do it. What you do NOT want to do is what they call “spamdexing” or “spamming” the search engines. Doing so will be considered a scam and will get you banned from the search engines altogether. This is disaster and to be avoided at all costs.

More tomorrow on how to optimize and how to avoid spamdexing

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.